News

2014

For 103 years geology students have been enjoying world-class geology field training at the University of Missouri's Camp Branson Field Laboratory located in the Wind River Range near Lander, Wyo. This year, the Geological Society of America (GSA) recognized the program with the GSA/ExxonMobil Field Camp Excellence Award. This $10,000 award is given each year to a geology field camp to assist with the summer field season. It is based on safety awareness, diversity, and technical excellence.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – The 1918 Flu Pandemic infected over 500 million people, killing at least 50 million. Now, a researcher at the University of Missouri has analyzed the pandemic in two remote regions of North America, finding that despite their geographical divide, both regions had environmental, nutritional and economic factors that influenced morbidity during the pandemic. Findings from the research could help improve current health policies.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – The human body is full of proteins called enzymes that help nearly every function in the body. Scientists have been studying enzymes for decades in order to learn how they work and how to create better drugs and medical treatments for many ailments. Now, University of Missouri researchers have completed a 3-D map of an enzyme called Proline utilization A (PutA). PutA facilitates metabolism by adding oxygen to molecules.

Noah Heringman, a professor in the English department, and his family will pack their bags this summer and travel from Columbia to the Research Triangle Park of North Carolina to spend a year at the National Humanities Center (NHC). Heringman was selected as a fellow of the NHC from a competitive field of 362 applicants.

Columbia Public Schools has named Professor Candi Galen a “Science Hero.”

The award recognizes Galen’s role in establishing and serving as faculty director of MU’s Show-Me Nature GK-12 program. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the program enhances science learning in elementary schools by partnering graduate students in the sciences with fourth and fifth grade teachers and students.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Lowland South America, including the Amazon Basin, harbors most of the last indigenous societies that have limited contact with the outside world. Studying these tribes, located deep within Amazonian rainforests, gives scientists a glimpse at what tribal cultures may have been like before the arrival of Europeans.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – The term “tween” denotes a child who is between the ages of 8 and 12 and is used to describe a preadolescent who is “in between” being a child and a teen. This demographic watches more television than any other age group and is considered to be a very lucrative market. Tween television programming consists of two genres: “teen scene” (geared toward girls) and “action-adventure” (geared toward boys).

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Currently, there are more than 18,300 golf courses in the U.S. covering over 2.7 million acres. The ecological impacts of golf courses are not always straightforward with popular opinion suggesting that environmentally, golf courses have a negative impact on ecosystems.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – The Cambrian Period is a time when most phyla of marine invertebrates first appeared in the fossil record. Also dubbed the “Cambrian explosion,” fossilized records from this time provide glimpses into evolutionary biology when the world’s ecosystems rapidly changed and diversified. Most fossils show the organisms’ skeletal structure, which may or may not give researchers accurate pictures of these prehistoric organisms.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Coding genes contain DNA sequences that are used to assign functions required for development and maintenance within a cell. These coding genes articulate how a fingernail grows, help develop nerve cells responsible for chewing, and are vital in helping the spinal cord facilitate movement in arms or legs.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – University of Missouri Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin and Commerce Bank Chair Jim Schatz today awarded one of the 2014 William T. Kemper Fellowships for Teaching Excellence to Ann Harrell, an associate professor of voice and voice area coordinator in the School of Music in the MU College of Arts and Science.

Beetles. They’re what’s for breakfast—or at least for the red widow spider (Latrodectus bishopi), according to a new study by University of Missouri biologist James Carrel. The study, which appears in the March issue of the Florida Entomologist, provides a first-time glimpse at the diet of this enigmatic spider found only in Florida’s “scrub” habitat.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – The world’s oceans cover more than 72 percent of the earth’s surface, impact a major part of the carbon cycle, and contribute to variability in global climate and weather patterns. However, accurately predicting the condition of the ocean is limited by current methods.

David Setzer, a professor of biological sciences in the College of Arts & Science, was named the Advisors Forum Advising Shout Out Award winner for February. The Shout Out Award is awarded twice a semester and recognizes undergraduate advisers for the impact they make on students’ lives.

While attending Mizzou, Stephanie Schuttler, Ph.D ’13, helped local school kids set up motion-sensitive cameras to study animals in their environment. The experience helped her land a prestigious postdoctoral position with eMammal at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – The University of Missouri Division of Student Affairs has awarded three faculty members the 2014 MU Faculty Achievement Award in Diversity. This is an endowed award given annually to three faculty members whose work elevates diversity and inclusion on the MU campus. This year’s recipients are:

COLUMBIA, Mo. – When use of a dominant hand is lost by amputation or stroke, a patient is forced to compensate by using the nondominant hand exclusively for precision tasks like writing or drawing. Presently, the behavioral and neurological effects of chronic, forced use of the nondominant hand are largely understudied and unknown.